ECONOMIC ACTIVITY OF ELDERLY PEOPLE

The economic activity of the elderly is becoming increasingly important with the aging of the population and the extension of the education of young people. Older people have experience, knowledge, which is an important component of human capital of modern organizations and countries in general. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, according to statistics, the economic activity of the elderly has decreased significantly during the 2008-2018 period. Most elderly workers are among the specialists and representatives of the simplest professions. Data on the registered statistics of economic activity of elderly in the regions of Ukraine are weakly correlated with the situation on regional labor markets. This is due, in particular, to the significant shadow component of employment in this age group. There are both positive and negative aspects of economic activity of older people. Despite the benefits of using the labor of older people, they compete for jobs with people of active working age, their involvement is more expensive for employers. With this in mind, regulating the use of human resources of older workers is necessary to maintain the labor balance in the country as a whole, as well as in regions and individual organizations. The article determines which decisions of the elderly the state can influence: retirement earlier than the normal retirement period; exit after reaching this age; continuation of economic activity outside the retirement age, i.e later retirement. The tools of influencing the economic activity of the elderly are the pension system, the creation of jobs taking into account the interests of older workers, improving the quality of their work, combating age discrimination. It is shown that changes in the pension system of Ukraine in 2017 contribute to the intensification of economic activity of persons of pre-retirement and retirement age.

Doing the Lord’s Work

Unlike most elderly workers, the Labor Board vets continued to work to the end of their lives. They had a mission in life. This chapter explores their work in their latter years. After briefly discussing Jean McKelvey, Clark Kerr, Ben Aaron, Robben Fleming, and George Shultz, it focuses on John Dunlop’s work with the clerical workers union at Harvard University, his work with the farmworkers union in Ohio and Michigan, and the commission he chaired at the request of President Bill Clinton to improve worker, union, and management relations in the United States. The first two efforts were successful, the latter a complete failure. The world overwhelmed the reformers

The Meaning of Work and Self-Management Experiences among Elderly Workers with Multiple Chronic Diseases: A Qualitative Study

With population aging, increasingly many elderly individuals are expected to participate in economic activities. Elderly workers have a higher prevalence of multiple chronic diseases, making it necessary to examine elderly workers’ experiences of health-related self-management in work environments. This qualitative study investigated the meaning of work and health-related self-management experiences among elderly workers with multiple chronic diseases. The study participants were elderly workers residing in South Korea (65 years old or older) with at least two chronic diseases. Twelve participated in individual interviews, which were audio-recorded and transcribed. Qualitative content analysis was conducted with the transcribed data. Six themes, 21 sub-themes, and 40 codes were derived. The themes were “benefit of work on health and life”, “adaptation to a new work environment”, “endurance”, “continuous efforts to maintain health”, “difficulties in self-management”, and “requirements for health promotion”. The participants experienced difficulties in health-related self-management due to time constraints, poor work environment, and financial burdens. However, participants expressed their desire to invest effort into managing their physical and psychological health and to work as long as possible. Programs that consider the aging and health-related characteristics of elderly workers and their work environments should be developed and implemented.

Keputusan Pekerja Lansia tetap Bekerja Pascapensiun dan Kaitannya dengan Kebahagiaan

This study aims to determine the contribution of pension insurance, health needs, and type of work to the decision of elderly workers to continue working post-retirement and its relationship with happiness. The Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) 2007 and IFLS 2014 were used as data, with an analysis unit of workers aged 52-65 years old in 2007. The analysis used is binary logistic regression and the Wilcoxon sign rank test. Pension insurance and work in the type of work with a large concentration demands a negative effect on the tendency of the elderly to continue working. Health care needs are fulfilled and work in the type of work with great physical demands has a positive effect on the tendency of the elderly to work. There is a difference in the level of happiness in the elderly when they are still actively working with when they are not working.

Age Discrimination in Hiring: An Experimental Study in Italy

This paper examines age discrimination in hiring against elderly workers in Italy. By means of a role-game laboratory experiment, we estimated the effect of age and certain important mediating factors, such as job experience and training, on hiring decisions, by considering also social influence and stereotypes. Our findings indicate that age discrimination against older people does exist even when candidates have comparable characteristics. Results suggest that although the Italian population has one of the highest life expectancies worldwide, health stereotypes are the most important determinant of this effect. However, we found that experience and up-to-date training by elderly workers could counterbalance this negative effect.

From Demographic Bonus to Health Bonus: How to Use Social Media to Improve Older People’s Willingness to Delay Retirement (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The problems associated with an aging population have become a worldwide challenge, affecting multiple countries and regions. While high-income countries have the challenges of an aging population and declining demographic dividend, they also have an elderly population (at and above 60 years old) that are healthier, with better working capabilities, compared with low-income countries. Therefore, promoting the transformation of the “demographic bonus “to “health bonus”, and improving the working life, will reduce the aging population’s negative impact on the structure of the labor force. OBJECTIVE Understanding the demand of employees aged 60 and above, as well as how to enhance their ability to work and willingness to delay retirement, has great economic and social value and important theoretical significance. This paper narrows the focus of all sectors of the community to the sector of elderly workers, so as to actively improve their workplace conditions and create a better environment for them, thus promoting the health bonus. METHODS This study based on the theories relating social support and work ability, and studies the willingness to delay retirement of the elderly from the perspective of social media. And focuses on how the usage of social media by elderly workers influences their work ability (related to both physical and mental health) and work stress, which affected their willingness to delay retirement. This study proposed structural equation model was constructed to studies this question. RESULTS The questionnaire respondents (staff over 55 years old), and they obtained the questionnaire from social media, and 1020 valid questionnaires were recovered. Results from structural equation modeling suggested that the usage of social media at work has a positive impact on elderly workers. In a working state, information support is the main factor affecting the self-efficacy of elderly workers, as compared with emotional support, the self-efficacy has an impact on work ability and ability to regulate work stress. Work ability and work stress have an equally important impact on one’s willingness to delay retirement, while social support has a relatively small impact on this willingness. CONCLUSIONS Our study shows that for elderly workers, the willingness to delay retirement is mainly affected by work ability and external work stress. Social support gained from social media can effectively help older people to enhance their work ability and to ease work stress. The results of the model hypothesis test provide the characteristics of elderly workers’ need of social support.

Emerging Issues in Occupational Disease: Mental Health in the Aging Working Population and Cognitive Impairment—A Narrative Review

Cognitive impairment has often been reported in scientific literature as a concern derived from chronic exposure to work-related stress. Organizational factors can contribute to the onset of this concern especially in a susceptible population such as elderly workers. The aim of our study was to review the last five years of scientific literature, focusing on experimental and epidemiological studies, possible mechanisms implicated in the onset of cognitive decline due to work-related stress, and the recent organizational strategies to prevent detrimental effects of stress on cognitive processes. A literature search was performed in scientific platforms Medline and Web of Science, by means of specific string search terms, restricting the search to the years of publication 2014–2019. Thirty-three articles were identified and qualitatively evaluated, reporting narratively the main point of interest. At this stage, six articles were excluded because they did not meet the inclusion criteria. Only a few articles considered the population of the elderly workers, often with a short follow-up period. Strategies to manage stress with organizational procedures are scarce. Mechanisms implicated in the development of cognitive impairment due to stress are not fully explained and seem to include a chronical decrease in the inhibitory process of neurological pathways. Further research that focused on strategies to manage stress in elderly workers, with the aim of preventing cognitive impairment processes, is warranted.

Flexibility and security policies for elderly workers: a case study in Vietnam

National policies in Vietnam show policy shifts towards active ageing and to improving flexibility and security in the labour market. The main question relates to the practice and the introduction of these macro policies at the workplace level is how an employer can combine greater flexibility for the organisation as well as work security for older workers. This paper presents the findings of a survey of wage paid elderly workers and human resource officer in Vietnam (Hanoi, Thaibinh, Ninhbinh) (n=39 companies and 428 elderly workers). A flexibility combining security approach for senior workers is most visible in the Vietnam workplaces because of a broader range of facilities such as phased retirement, flexible working hours, education and training, and wage flexible. The survey shows different strategies addressing the issue of older workers. The transport and telecom service sector favour for flexibility in recruitment. The education and health sector are still focused on a ‘relief’ strategy (adapting workload, tasks and working hours), while the construction industry favour and employability policy. Most of the workplace policies for senior workers show passivity in all items favours flexibility of the organisation, only small rate favour employment security for the workers.